GLI3 and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: pGL3-basic with SLC2A1-AS1-promoter-WT or –MUT vectors along with pcDNA3.1 or pcDNA3.1-GLI3 were co-transfected into ESCC cells, the results demonstrated that co-transfection of pcDNA3.1-GLI3 and pGL3-SLC2A1-AS1-promoter-WT extremely enhanced the activity of luciferase in EC9706, TE1 and KYSE180 cells, whereas the other groups displayed no difference (Fig. 2B).